In social media, your content is not what’s going to set you apart from the competition, but your page definitely makes a statement about your brand, your dedication to business, and your overall place in the market. Busy and boring, drab and dated, and empty and uninvolved pages are going to work against you. Below are some tips to help you develop better social media pages:

1) Create a professional, attractive cover:

Even though every social media site has different rules and regulations revolving around the size and scope of your cover images and on-page photos and elements, you can still add a custom-designed, high-quality cover image. Whether it’s Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, YouTube, Instagram, or any other site, you can add a quality, custom image. Develop a custom image that really signifies your brand, perhaps incorporating your logo, a business slogan, or some other brand element which can be used consistently (in different sizes, of course) across your entire social media platform.

2) Lead with your best content:

On a site like Facebook, you have an opportunity to pin certain posts to your page, along with other elements. Put your proverbial best foot forward by pinning high-quality content that’s Liked, shared and commented on. On a site like YouTube, lead with your best videos; on Pinterest, Tumblr, Instagram, and other photo-based sites, lead with your best photos. Appearance isn’t everything, but the old cliché is definitely true: You never get a second chance to make a first impression. Stand out by giving visitors a view of a great page when they visit.

3) Become dedicated to quality:

The more dedicated you are to the overall quality of your content, the more content you’re going to have to proudly display on your pages. Say someone visits your page after it has been established for around a year. What are they going to see? One popular pinned post, some unique element, and a bunch of content that’s being ignored or thumbed down? When you’re dedicated to niche marketing with quality, custom content that solves problems and engages users, your pages are going to be chocked full of popular material. So when browsing your pages, visitors are going to see popular material. The more other people appreciate it, the greater the odds that someone else will initially engage with it.

4) Attract a better class of friend:

Becoming a dedicated niche marketer who emphasizes supreme quality will also help you to attract a better class of friend/fan. The more related your fans are to your niche, the more they’re going to Like, share and comment on your content. Whereas basic passersby may include the uninterested or trolls who will have negative reactions to your content. And don’t doubt for a second that social media users won’t take 5 seconds out of their rowse time to neg-rate you. Many live for it. Focusing on quality content and creating an attractive page is going to attract a better class of friend. The point, of course, is that better fans beget better fans. Your social pages will take on a life of their own, where the atmosphere is quality from header to footer.

5) Use social page enhancers:

There are many different social page enhancing elements on sites like Facebook and other social hubs. For instance, you can use elements and apps like Poll Daddy, Clobby and Social RSS to create various feeds, polls and quizzes, and other attractive, high-quality elements that speak to the professionalism of your social sites. You don’t want to pack things down with a ton of elements and add-ons. This isn’t 2006, and you’re not dealing with MySpace. Keep things clean and focus on the flow of your page. If you’re willing to create custom images, present high-quality, niche-specific content, and maintain a cleaner atmosphere that emphasizes your professionalism, you can create pages that are able to stand out amongst the other basic pages and profiles on the web.

Author: Simon Campbell, a writer from Facebook ad campaign tool Qwaya. He loves to write different topics about social media and participates in some communities and forums.